UKPA is hosting a seminar on rights with the Open Rights Group at the Guardian, Farringdon, London, Saturday March 29th 2pm – 5pm and it would be great if you would come and take part.

Becky Hogge and Matt Wells (heads of ORG and Guardian Audio respectively) will be there, as well as representatives from MCPS-PRS and AIM (Association of Independent Music).

ORG will discuss how the EU AVMS Directive could impact negatively upon podcasting (if we let it) and generally explain the current issues facing podcasters as they see them. In the second session, we’ll cover new developments in music and podcasting.

There will be an opportunity afterwards to eat, drink and socialise at a local pub.

Attendance is strictly limited to 50, and places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Sorry but due to security, no tickets are available “on the door” – all places must be booked in advance by March 22nd 2008.

Back in April 2006 when the UK Podcasters Association started, we were given advice and support by the Open Rights Group.

As a new organisation, we needed all the help we could get, and ORG gave it. Their intelligence enabled us to go into high-level meetings confidently, fully aware of our rights, and with developed strategies. Since then we have worked with ORG and the EFF to keep podcasting free from bad legislation and heavy-handed regulation.

As ORG celebrates its second birthday, please consider joining, or donating.

One month to go until the nation’s first PodCamp, September 1/2 2007 at Birmingham NTI many UKPA members will be there, so make sure you’re with them. Here’s the blurb:

PodCampUK is a two-day event bringing all the excitement and ideas and energy of a PodCamp to the UK for the first time. This unique event promises to be a brilliant mix of ideas, LIVE music, FREE food, great people and much more.

PodCamps are meetups for anyone interested in New Media. The first PodCamp was held in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2006, and they are now spreading across the globe, enabling culture, commerce and connections.

The “Pod” in PodCamp comes from podcasting; but you can expect to find anyone at PodCamp, podcasters, video makers, software developers, entrepreneurs, journalists, musicians, social networkers, marketers, producers, publishers, PR firms, educators, actors, writers, boys, broadcasters, girls and Web 2.0 gurus, all using the internet to communicate with shared media.

Some are beginners, some are experts, but all are enthused by what they are doing, redefining the old media landscape and defining a brand new culture.

PodCamp UK is a free event, an open door on new media, organised by volunteers who have all experienced Podcamps elsewhere in the world. To pay for the venue for two days with food for all attendees, we now have sponsorship from UK businesses Cheeze, PodcastÂ Nation,Â and DigitalÂ Central. Nick Saalfeld from WellsÂ Park has very kindly offered to pick up the refreshments & JeffÂ Pulver has put a tab behind the bar for the Saturday night social.

This is a FIRST – media coverage is bound to increase as we draw nearer to the first weekend in September. Please contact us if you are interested in joining our sponsors, and helping to make Podcamp UK a truly special event.

Our Mission: “The right to podcast your own voice speaking your own words cannot be licensed, and should be a freedom for all in perpetuity.”

Description: The founding principle of this cause is that podcasting, and the freedom to put your own unedited voice online, so long as it isn’t breaking the laws of the land, should be available to all, and is not a licensable commodity.

There is still a lot of confusion in the online rights space with regard to podcasting. UK Podcasters Association has attempted to make more sense of the situation by building and maintaining active links with the licensing bodies, entering into dialogue with UK government and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and joining with other groups like the EFF internationally to bring about recognition of our basic rights and to resist bad legislation in podcasting.

Why podcasting? Because in many ways, within social media, podcasting is the closest in form to old media, and as such it is likely that lawmakers will seek to bring it under their jurisdiction. How this is done matters – we want to make sure that as business comes into the space, ordinary people can still pick up a recording device, say what they want into it, make a radio or TV-format show (or any recording) of their own devising, and put it online.

Podcasting is for all, and we’d like to keep it that way.

Positions:

Keep podcasting free, requiring no license from government or other statutory body;

Establish podcasting as a universal right of citizens everywhere

The above text is in Facebook where if you use that social network – and we advise caution with using Facebook – you might also join the cause. Any donations go towards the UKPA to help us in our non-profit work, or in Facebook, to the EFF who helped us and podcasters everywhere resist bad legislation from WIPO.

Less than one year ago WIPO promised to re-draft its Broadcasting treaty. Member States, mindful of the harm it could cause to citizen media, refused to grant new copyright-like rights to broadcasters and cablecasters. The new draft was issued in May, but contrary to WIPO’s promise – it offers similar exclusive control to big media but offers no protection for internet users.

Please help the cause by signing the petition – it takes virtually no time at all. Beyond that, please write to your MPs. This tactic was really effective in last year’s campaign, especially when you ask your MP to pass on your concerns to the relevant minister.

“The exceptions are far worse than this time last year – there’s no mention of podcasting, webcasting or netcasting, but broadcasters and cablecasters will get the right to control internet retransmission of anything broadcast or cablecast. Therefore, podcasters won’t receive any rights under the treaty (only traditional broadcasters and cablecasters will), but podcasters are likely to be detrimentally affected by the treaty for a number of reasons. Put simply, from podcasters’ point of view, we are in the same place we were last year, but there’s an even stronger push to try to get the treaty through. If the current treaty draft is accepted by WIPO Member Countries next week, it moves to the next treaty stage – an intergovernmental Diplomatic Conference now scheduled in November.

Since we were so successful at turning around this ship last year with the help of you and your fellow podcasters, we’d like to deliver the same message to WIPO next week: Don’t Break Citizen Broadcasting on the Internet! We have put together a Dear WIPO Petition and would like to ask for your help in getting the word out to podcasters and podcasting organizations to sign on.”

UKPA’s Dean Whitbread says,

“UK podcasts are among the best in the world, enjoying a huge international audience. As well as being a dynamic part of the new digital economy, Podcasting is an important social freedom which empowers citizens, breaks down existing barriers to technology, and adds great richness to our culture.

This inappropriate WIPO legislation is dangerous, and must not be allowed to pass into national law as it stands, or we risk seeing a vibrant industry saddled with restrictions and our individual rights handed wholesale to corporate broadcasters.”

WRITE TO YOUR MP – remember to write the letter in your own words, explaining how much podcasting is valuable and why the Treaty is a serious threat to what we do. Ask your MP to bring this to the attention of Malcolm Wicks, MP, the UK Science Minister.

The UKPA Thumbs Up is an award to recognise exceptional effort and achievement in podcasting. We don’t give this award to just anyone – we give the Thumbs Up to people who are really exceptional in promoting podcasting, which is one of UKPA’s twin aims.

Podcasting can be personal, social, business, educational or non-profit in nature. If your activity develops the economic and the social potential of podcasting, makes more than usual headway in this rapidly developing culture in some innovative, positive and possibly landscape-changing way, then you are eligible for the UKPA Thumbs Up.

UKPA members get to nominate, so if you know of a scheme or project which you think deserves a UKPA Thumbs Up, please leave a comment here, or email thumbsup ->at